Various types of hand-held devices have been devised for shelling or shucking the shells of nuts and which basically comprise some form of sharply pointed implement which can be inserted into the slit or opening between the half shells each nut and in some manner pried to separate the halves away from the meat of the nut. Pistachio nuts, however, present particular problems by virtue of their relatively small size and the difficulty of grasping the nut while manipulating a tool to pry or separate the half shells.
Of the approaches taken in the past, U.S. Pat. No. 4,317,281 to Yowa discloses a somewhat pick-like opener in which one end can be held between the thumb and forefinger and the opposite spoon-shaped end has a sharply pointed tip which is inserted into the slit between the shells and manipulated to pry open the shells. U.S. Pat. No. 4,462,156 to Himelhoch employs pointed ends in face-to-face relation to one another at the ends of a pair of levers with bumpers or loop-shaped enlargements associated with the pointed ends to limit the extent or degree of penetration of the pointed ends into the slit between the half shells following which the pointed ends are spread apart to separate the half shells. This approach is desirable from the standpoint of being able to apply lever action to the pointed ends in prying the shell open but presupposes that there is a sufficient opening between the half shells to permit insertion of the double thickness of the ends when disposed in face-to-face relation.
It is therefore desirable to provide a tool which possesses the advantages of a pick-like instrument in having a single blade thickness to insert into the narrow pistachio nut opening combined with the prying action or force realized with the use of a double-ended tool in which the ends can be spread under lever action. Moreover, it is proposed to provide such a tool of one-piece construction in which the lever action is improved by establishing a greater separation between the lever arms which can be more easily grasped in the hand and squeezed, as opposed to closely spaced levers which must be squeezed between the fingers of the hand.